The present invention relates to peripheral device control apparatus capable of remote-controlling desired peripheral devices.
Most of the CD, DVD and other audio devices known today can be remotely operated or controlled via remote controllers. Although useful, the remote controllers are sometimes found disadvantageous in that various remote controllers have to be used properly in accordance with types of device to be operated, e.g. a CD remote controller for a CD device and DVD remote controller for a DVD device. Among possible solutions to the inconvenience is the so-called “learning remote controller”, which is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. HEI-7-7771. Namely, in this case, a user first performs remote control operation on a remote controller for a desired device (hereinafter “device A”) in order to cause device A to perform a desired action or operation (hereinafter “operation B”), causes the learning remote controller to receive an infrared ray signal output at that time from the remote controller for device A, and then depresses a desired key (hereinafter “key C”) on the learning remote controller to cause the learning remote controller to store the received infrared ray signal in association with depressed key C. After that, each time the user depresses key C of the learning remote controller, instead of operating the remote controller for device A, the learning remote controller transmits the infrared ray signal associated with depressed key C, so that device A can be caused to perform operation B.
However, with the learning remote controller, it is necessary to store all infrared ray signals for causing the device to perform various desired operations, and such infrared-ray-signal storing operation by the user tends to be bothersome and time-consuming. Besides, because the learning remote controller is, after all, a remote controller, it is necessary for the user to operate the learning remote controller before a desired device so that an infrared ray signal, output from the learning remote controller, can reach the desired device. Where there are a plurality of types of devices to be controlled via the same learning remote controller and when a particular one of the devices is to be caused to perform desired operation, the user has to direct the learning remote controller toward the particular device and then find and depress a specific key among many keys of the learning remote controller. Such manipulation, by the user, of the learning remote controller tends to be extremely cumbersome. Further, because the keys of the learning remote controller are limited in number, it is difficult to cause each of the plurality of types of devices to perform a plurality of kinds of operations via the learning remote controller.